The Alliance, a platform of North American retailers, on Wednesday expressed their interest to continue with the ongoing remediation programmes even after the expiry of its tenure for the sake of ensuring workplace safety in Bangladesh’s apparel sector. “We expect the organisation that will continue the remediation effort (after the alliance’s tenure ends) needs to be independent, free from pressure, credible and needs to have the engineering capability,” country director of Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety James F Moriarty told a press conference at a city hotel.”No one wants to see a disaster in 2019 that undermines all the great work we have done. That is why I will not leave Bangladesh without putting in place the necessary measure to sustain our safety gains,” he said.The Alliance came forward to ensure workplace safety in Bangladeshi RMG sector following the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013. The tenure of the platform will expire in July 2018.Elaborating the achievements of Alliance till date, Mr Moriarty said 60 alliance factories have completed their Corrective Action Plans (CAPs). “Sixty eight per cent of all required repairs across active Alliance factories have been completed.”Of those, 62 per cent repairs were deemed as ‘highest priority’ and high priority, while the most critical items included retrofitting of columns and the installation of fire doors, he informed.The Alliance continues to maintain a no-tolerance policy for factories that were not making sufficient progress on remediation, the former US ambassador to Bangladesh said, adding that 129 factories have been suspended till date.He also informed that the Alliance has so far trained 1.3 million workers, 24,000 security guards in 947 factories to get them informed about their rights and responsibilities at their respective workplaces.”Putting achievement aside, however, I want to be clear that much work lies ahead for the Alliance over next 18 months,” he said.Expressing the willingness of the Alliance to be associated with the efforts to ensure safety of the Bangladeshi RMG factories, Mr Moriarty said they would continue to help build one of the safest garment industries of the world in Bangladesh.”We will help put in place the systems and organisations necessary to ensure that a sustainable culture of workers flourishes here long into the future,” he added.
